Dirty Foot Lane is the debut solo album by Slade legend Dave Hill and this review will mix in some of Dave's comments about the songs at last weeks Album launch interview, meet and greet at All Is Joy on Dean Street in Soho, that is the screening room that was once the strip club that the Sex Pistols infamously played at. The chat was hosted by Pat Gilbert who asked some good short questions and then allowed Dave to tell us all his stories, of why he recorded his solo album now. From why it's called Dirty Foot Lane a real location near to where he grew up and somewhere his kids went to play. To a comment made to him by the guy who runs the German Slade museum about someone who used to play in the tree House at Daves house. The story about the first house he ever bought in the Cotswolds, including the shock on the woman's face, on opening her daughters bedroom, realising that the bloke on the poster was looking round her house!
A brilliant tale about an early offer to go and play in the Bahamas, at the Tropicana that Dave thought should have been the script to Carry On The Bahamas, complete with a one-eyed promoter and his being asked to model ladies clothes, that was the start of Slade's Glam period. Pat eventually introduced the albums co-producer Django Holder who helped record the album at his Feel The Noize Studios in wonderful downtown Kilburn, after his Dad Noddy recommended his skills to Dave. The other producer was Rob Childs who worked with Dave at Child's Play Studios. The other musicians on the album are John Berry, Rob Childs, Izzi Archer and Jazmyn Barlow.
The album opens with Thanks For The Good Times a heart felt thanks for all the support he has received over the decades as a musician, all the good times he has been part of in his time with Slade, the slow jangly acoustic guitar is nicely bucolic in a Slim Chance vein, Dave made clear at the album launch that this is as much a love letter to his Slade band mates, as well as to the legion of fans and all the clothes and wild times they got to live through, it was written during Covid when he missed being on the road the most.
Back In The Air Again is a good old-fashioned honky tonk rocker, for hitting the road and going on tour again on an DC10, with swaggering guitar licks, helping to make clear how much he loved going out on tour, playing to his bands fans wherever on the globe they may live, while sounding like a close friend to All The World Is A Stage.
Dust My Axe is a great blues song for the realisation that from here on in it's all bad news, more friends are dying or ill, and the Covid Pandemic had destroyed much of what he held dear, the stonking beat allows Dave to really fly off on guitar.
She Had A Troubled Heart was one of the songs Dave explained at the albums launch, the song is about a woman he met and an old friend who had committed suicide and how it happened, over strings and sympathetic vocals, explaining just how tragic things became, how hearing of his friends death and the effect it had on him, this is for anyone whose contemplating ending it all, to go and find the help they need. That is also part of the reason he became an ambassador for mental health in the west Midlands where he works with Lenny Henry, who he first met when he was clearing glasses at an early Slade gig.
Sweet And Tender is a love letter to his mum for allowing him to be who he is and encouraging him on his journey and is a song he started playing solo to allow all of his feelings of love and loss to show through, the album version is full of jangling acoustic guitar with fluid electric cutting through with a nice bittersweet edge. He also explained that his mum was actually married to a different man to his dad, who had disappeared and the sorrow he still feels for his sister who died at the young age of 33 in childbirth.
Fast Train has a suitably chugging beat, while sounding a bit Whitesnake, for someone whose career in Slade was on life's Fast Train and just how they blow through everyone's lives, he encourages us all to hold onto life and never retire, before unleashing a great central solo.
Only Fools And Horses is about being managed by Chas Chandler and all the games he got up too, along with an early Slade promoter known as Rodger The Dodger who managed to gamble the bands fees away before the end of the show, he had to pay them late, but unless you play the game you'll never have a chance to really make it, the insistent blues work well with some nice harmony vocals.
Play It To The Crowd is a great rollicking anthem to the joys of playing live in a rock & Roll band in the vein of The Whole Worlds Going Crazee while he still wants to make sure to Kill 'Em At The Hot Club Tonight his life's credo.
Reason's To Succeed might re-work Blank Generation musically in places, but this has a different intent to that song, Dave makes plain why he needed to Succeed and make something of his life, to work through the pain and suffering, that urge to rise above and make a better life for your family and children.
The Album Concludes with Dirty Foot Lane that allows Dave to narrate all the things he has done over the years down in Dirty Foot Lane with some gentle slide guitar and jangly acoustics, this is full of memories and how happy his time spent there has been. The song was originally written in 1992 and has been re-worked and added to over the years, when he was writing for the album during Covid, he would be playing tunes on his headphones while his wife watched Tipping Point and the chats they would have, he believes for him all roads lead back to Dirty Foot Lane.
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